Ginny and I have been happily married for 50 years , have 2 sons and 6 grandchildren. We have been avid boaters since the mid 1970's. We have sailed in various parts of the world making 'bareboat' charter trips in the Washington and Canadian San Juans and Gulf Islands, Maine,the British Virgins, South Pacific's Moorea and Tuamoto's and New Zealand. We owned and raced a J-24, Laser, and cruised a Newport 30 before buying a long range trawler in 2003 and cruising the waters of the Pacific Northwest and the 'Inside Passage' of British Columbia to SE Alaska for the last 10 years. After first owning a 2000 Selene 47, and 2002 Selene 50 (both named 'Ina Marie', we now, in the 'bell lap' of our boating days, own, operate and thoroughly enjoy 'Ginny C' , our 2007 Selene 42.
It is Sunday, August 11, 2013 and today we begin the second leg of the Alaska portion of our trip leaving Sitka and heading for the Glaciers in Tracy Arm about 5 days away and then to Petersburg 2 days from there.
Drinks at the historic and funky, picturesque Pioneer Bar was a kick. That plus a yummy Halibut dinner at the Dock Shack was a perfect way to close our Ketchikan to Sitka chapter and bid adieu and abiento to Dave and Stephie.
We awoke to another cloudless sky and departed Sitka on a timed 28nm course to backtrack to transit through Sergious Narrow’s high water slack at 2:30 pm. We then continued on another 23 nm to anchor in Appleton Cove along Peril Straight. It was great to see the spectacular scenery on the backtrack leg as we covered almost all of it in dense fog and rain coming in to Sitka. We got a good push in Olga and Neva Straights and neared Sergious 1.5 hours ahead of slack current . The super hi speed hydrofoil Alaska Ferry Fairweather screamed by us going the other way as we exit Neva heading into Salisbury Sound.
The next thing that happened was amazing. A large very nice commercial fishing trawler came our way about 20 minutes before our reaching Sergious. Low and behold her name was “Ginny C”. (We had heard that she was in the area). I called her on the VHF and she gave us a report on her transit through.
Based on the report we slowed down in Deadman’s Reach to kill some time because we were too early. Six porpoise came right to our bow and played with us for about 10 minutes. After circling near the mouth for about 15 more minutes my Nav. aids showed a 3.4 nm current going our way at 1:25, an hour ahead of slack. Seeing a lot of moving water in numerous directions but no rapids or huge overfalls, we decided to proceed and went through without incident although it took some handling with all the turbulence, small overfalls and cross currents.
The rest of our day was uneventful...just flat water and awesome mountain views...... as we proceed on to this beautiful Appleton Cove.
About 5 miles before arriving 3 young girls went screaming by on Jet Skis. We had seen only one other pleasure boat all day. We knew there had to be a big one ahead somewhere close by. There she was 20 minutes later as we rounded Pt. Elizabeth to enter Rodman Bay and this beautiful cove. Her name is ‘Serene’, flying a British or Bahamian flag. We had seen her briefly, anchored off Ketchikan, as we departed there on July 27th, but she was much farther from us then.
Without a doubt she is the biggest private yacht we have ever seen. She has a very large helicopter on her bow, has at least 5-7 decks, three boat garages to house all her toys, including a miniature one man sub and a tender significantly larger than this boat. I would guess she is nearly 500 feet long or more. We passed close enough to her to observe a security force aboard and an Alaska State Trooper escort boat with 4 state cops on board. As I write this we are anchored around the corner about 1 mile from her.
Arriving here at 4:30, 51nm from Sitka, we dropped a crab trap on the way in and hadn’t had the anchor down 5 minutes before the Alaska State Troopers came into the cove and took down our boat name.
The rest of this beautiful day was capped off with a big crab feed, finishing off our catch from Baby Bear a few days back, watching a Grizzly bear fish the stream at the head of the cove and Ginny enjoying her after dinner kayaking on the mirror calm surface of this most
beautiful spot.
beautiful spot.
August 12, 2013-- 35 miles down Peril and Chatham Straights : Whale Tales
I awake at 6 am and it is clear. Ginny and I get up at 7 and we are fogged in. We can see the crab trap floats but not much further. The trap yields 4 barely large enough ‘keepers’ so we will feast on crab again when we reach Takatz Bay, our destination about 35nm away in Chatham Straight on the east side of Baranof Island. We pull anchor at 8:15 and run in dense fog until about 10:20 breaking out as it burns off about the last 5 miles of Peril Straight, before turning south into Chatham Straight. The forecast today is clear, 77, and light winds. Megayacht ‘Serene’ is nowhere to be ‘seen’ even as a blob on the radar.
During this time Lizzy disappears and after searching and calling everywhere we become convinced she has gone overboard in the fog as we had briefly opened the door once. As a last resort, I ask Ginny to reopen every cabinet door in the boat and low and behold, out she comes from the master head’s under sink cabinet. She had a good time exploring the bowls of the boat. :<) WHEW!!!!!!
The highlight of the day, other than finding Lizzy still on board, were the three large whales we watched for almost on hour near shore just north of Pt. Lull, about 1.5 hours north of our destination. Two were together, right next to each other within 75 yards of us.
We cut the motor and drift silently as we were glued to them. One seemed to be almost sleeping right on the surface. All of a sudden it bolted from the other with a huge forceful roll and for the next 20 minutes they first partially broached and them continuously rolled and slapped the water with their huge fins. The water was almost mirror calm so watching all this was easy and fun. We think we got some good pictures of all this.
Takatz Bay is absolutely spectacular as was yesterday’s stop in Appleton Cove. It is a large protected cove about 3 miles long with high, high cliffs and glaciers towering over it plus a pretty waterfall. We anchored, dropped the crab trap and enjoyed the rest of the beautiful, warm, cloudless day. After our third day in a row crab dinner, we both kayaked around the awesome bay for an hour. Dave thought he spotted a bear on shore. A sailboat came in and anchored so we were not alone.
Tomorrow we hope to leave early for our 40 mile run to Cannery Cove in Pybus Bay on Admiralty Island. We are told that a luxury fishing resort is located there which welcomes ‘transients’ like us in their dining room. We will find out! Unfortunately, intermittent showers and overcast skies are predicted for the next several days, although seas are predicted to remain calm.
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